Last weekend brought another bike ride, and though a little shorter than the previous it was still quite the day! The morning started out bright and early with a quickly whipped up protein pancake breakfast. A pancake a piece, two pots of coffee, and a box of cinnamon toast crunch between the three of us roommates prepared us for the day ahead.
This time we thought we were being smart by getting ready to leave and being out the door by 9AM. We're heading into the peak of summer heat here in Madagascar and being close to the coast you sure do notice those +34 days with 80% humidity a lot more than you'd think.
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| A quick pre-ride inspection of the bike showed that despite being Chinese it took the beating of the last two weekends in stride! |
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| Look at that amazing moustache, just look at it. Beautiful. |
Riding out of camp and heading North until we crossed the railroad tracks, a quick left to head West to the Shell to gas up. So far so good, no issues, the bike is running well, I haven't fallen off or missed a shift, and I remembered to bring enough money to pay for gas. Winning!
Gassed up I engage first gear with a quick flick of the toe, slowly roll the clutch out of my fingers and twist into the throttle. Through the traffic circle with a bit of lean, and accelerate up to the speed limit. The five of us are heading North down route 2 on the West side of town. In my year in Toamasina, I've yet to actually go this way, I find myself trapped between the desire to gawk and the need to pay attention. I vote for the latter and keep my eyes firmly affixed to the road ahead. That racecar vision thing is finally paying off.
This time I was prepared, I remembered to bring my camera. The only problem is when you're riding in a group of five, concentrating on keeping up and not getting in the way of traffic you forget to stop and take any pictures... for a while. Whoops. Next rotation I'm bringing back my GoPro!
Anyway on our way to the trail we passed a number of businesses, huts, houses, and a very swanky looking place complete with it's own helicopter pad and a moat. Yeah, a moat. 100,000 AR says a politician lives there!
Up ahead to the left there's a red dirt road, we've found our exit. Signalling, avoiding the oncoming traffic, and a quick left and we're off road heading for the bush. We stop briefly and Colin (a South African friend and an experienced Malagasy biker) informs us that we're riding on what used to be a motocross track, until it fell into disuse and people turned the racetrack into streets and promptly built huts on it. Hilariously enough when I checked the route on google maps later sure enough you can see the old outline. These people don't EVER let an opportunity go to waste, very resourceful.
Anyhow, a little further down the sandy/dirt road and a few near misses in losing the front wheel we come to the first obstacle. A slough, or as the Malagasy call it, the local car wash, laundry machine, bathing area, and drinking water. Luckily for us, they have built the SKETCHIEST LOOKING multi-tiered platform bridge of death ever. Complete with various wheel snagging gaps, no railing, and about three feet of useable width. I actually muttered "You've got to be shitting me." shortly before Colin popped over the 250 feet of death like it was no big deal.
The following is paraphrasing my thought process in my attempt to get over. Great... now I have to do this without falling. I sucked at this stuff even when I was on a mountain bike. Ah well, what would Niels do in this situation? ... He'd probably use his talent and experience... too bad you don't have any. OK, you've got this, focus, look ahead, don't think about falling, don't think about falling, don't think about falling, SHIT you're falling, no you're OK, a little more throttle, OH SHIT WATER, THROTTLE, THROTTLE, GO, Whew! ... Hooray for you! You're off, and in spectacular fashion even, without getting wet! Just pretend like that was totally on purpose, don't make eye contact, they'll know.
Surely there can't be anything quite that sketchy again, what's that over the crest? Oh god. Another one. Well, you've done this once already, it can't be that bad, you've got the hang of it. Alright, not too fast but not too slow either, just ease it over. Wow - that's a big gap ahead. Oh god, it swallowed the front wheel, what're you going to do to avoid getting wet? THROTTLE! It worked last time! Wee, air time, and off. Thank god I don't have to do that again! Oh wait, how am I going to get back? DAMMIT!
The bridges of death conquered for now, we start making some decent progress as the flatish land makes it's way into rolling bushy hills. Turning right around the corner brings us past a makeshift quarry where they've essentially dug out the side of a hill with a shovel. No joke. Lacking the equipment to properly quarry it's pretty common that a group of people will come together and using nothing but the sweat off their backs and some hand tools quarry out rock, manually break it into gravel, and sell it as road crush at market. This particular quarry looks fairly abandoned but there is probably a couple of square acres that have been mined, and 200 vertical feet of hill that is missing. Pretty impressive site. In true Matt fashion however, the camera stayed snug and warm in my pocket. Awesome work!
Past the quarry and into the bush we go. Up and up over some rapidly narrowing and far more technical riding. I'm about second from the back of the pack at this point, trying to stay out of the way and keep up. The rider in front of me is trying to climb a fairly narrow and fairly steep bit of trail in between two trees. I watch him go up, he's about 2/3's of the way there and making good time. I see a different line and go for it thinking I've left him enough time to get over and up. Wrong. Rule #1 - give the guy ahead time to get up the hill before you head up, dumbass.
The rider in front promptly loses momentum and stops, nearly rolling his bike over backwards. I rapidly close the gap to him and veer left to avoid a collision caused by nothing other than my own stupidity. Hidden in the brush is a stump of a long since cut down tree. I catch it with my steel toed riding boot which promptly gets kicked backwards off my foot peg. The steel toothed peg grabs the tree trunk and I come to a halt right now. Luckly for me I was already slowing down so I stayed on the bike, grabbed a handful of brakes, and put my feet down.
Then I look down and notice my once immaculate gear shift lever is now a pretzel, folded over and jammed between the tree trunk and the foot peg. Awesome. You're 30 minutes into the ride and you're going to have to push your bike home. Easing the bike off of it's tree stand I lean over to assess the damage. Hmm... I could use a pair of pliers I brought along and gently ease the gear level back into position, but it's hot out and I'm pissed off at my own stupidity and that damn tree trunk. So I decided it was way easier to use my foot, kicked the pedal straight, knocked it into gear, and hammered it on up the hill.
At the top is where the group was waiting and where we stopped and I remember to take my first picture. We made a big mistake though, and stopped where there was no shade. A couple of minutes of standing around netted a few pictures and a bodily fluid loss of at least a litre. No joke. You lose an absolutely insane amount of water in the direct sunlight, the heat is really like nothing I've ever experienced.
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| Despite a large bruise on the leg, a slightly crooked gear shift, and a rapidly depleting supply of sweat, I remembered I was standing somewhere beautiful and snapped a couple of shots. |
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| This was post crazy uphill but pre realization that it was really damn warm outside, thus everyone looks quite pleased with themselves. |
So, having thoroughly congratulated ourselves for being totally amazing dirt bike masters we set off again further into the bush. Our intrepid guide Ian was in the lead, taking a left at a fork, leading us down a really steep hill, and continuing deeper into the bushy green sea.
Ahead, the group began to slow. Ian had stopped at the top of a very rutted and fairly steep hill covered in leaves. Once again I remember thinking, "Well, that looks impossible to ride back up, there is no way we're going any further.", and before I could voice my sanity he was in gear and down the hill.
I was pleasantly surprised to discover that riding down the hill wasn't nearly as difficult as I imagined it would be. When I got to the bottom I once again gave myself a mental pat on the back, nearly hit the guy in front again, and then remembered that I had to ride up that very same hill. Shit. More foresight is required. Just as I was coming to that very late realization, I looked up to determine why we'd again stopped so suddenly at the bottom of the hill. Apparently, the trail we were riding had promptly run out and dropped us into a rice field built into the valley between two hills. Awesome.
So you know how sometimes you convince yourself you really want something and then immediately regret it? Yeah. Sitting at the bottom of two really steep hills with no way out but backwards and six inches of rice paddy mud on either side is a lot like that. With all five of us at the bottom of the hill it was a sweaty 30 minutes getting the bikes turned around without getting stuck and then right back up the hill.
I thoroughly amazed myself by making it up unscathed and stopped at the top to assist anyone else that might need a hand. 3 of the 5 made it without issues, the rest required some help and/or a couple of tires to get it done. Queue shit eating grin. :)
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| This is the top of the hill, it looks pretty tame in the photo, but it drops off quite quickly where the trail ends. Good times. |
The group reunited once again at the top we made the horrible decision to stop to catch our breath. Once again we lost about 5L of water sitting around breathing heavy before setting out back in the direction from whence we came.
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| This is what you look like after you've realized stopping was a really shitty idea. |
Just before heading out Ian admits (to his credit) that he is really lost at this point and he thinks he knows where we missed a turn. Cool, no problem, we'll just head back the way we came and then take the correct turn. We all set out with Ian in the lead, I'm 2nd last in the group and ahead of me Phil slows down to head up a smallish hill. I again decide to follow him up (I'm a slow learner), he bails after clipping a tree, I go around him to the right and head up to the top.
Looking back to make sure Phil's OK I look ahead... hmm... where'd everyone go? Better get a move on to catch up. We start making great time as the trail opens up again. It's really a ton of fun hopping from clean line to clean line trying to find that balance between speed and control. I realize we've been riding for quite a while now and we've not seen hide nor hair of the fellows in front.
We round a bend to the left and Phil takes off, I flag him down and he says he's seen Nolan ahead. Crack open the throttle and tearing dirt up the hill we catch up to Nolan who's noticed that he'd lost the folks behind. He stops, we stop, he says "Where's Ian?"... queue perplexed looks at each other... "We thought he was with you?" I question... "Well, he was... but then he wasn't. I don't know." Hmm... Great. We've lost someone, in the bush, in Madagascar. The day is going wonderfully!
Colin, the veteran trail rider and voice of reason pipes up "Ah, forget it, he'll find us, keep going." Already thinking of what I'm going to tell his parents at the funeral, we ride on. Five more minutes down the trail we come to an old concrete "bridge" that hops over what we affectionately refer to as a poop ditch. Essentially at one point in time it was a stream, but whoever lives nearby uses it for everything from washing water to irrigation to an outhouse... As a result the water isn't what you'd call swimmable.
Anyway, the four of us that remain come to a stop to plan Ian's funeral and figure out how we might go about finding the body. As we're chatting away in the shade, Nolan's phone rings.... Yeah. In the middle of the bush we have cell reception, I love this place. It's Ian, he wants to know where the hell we are, he went left at the fork... apparently the same fork that we all missed. I imagined he sighed at that point, and decides it's easier to come back to us.
Having found shade and feeling relieved that we don't have to deliver the bad news to Ian's parents, we decided it's time for a group shot.
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| Hooray for adventuring and shade! (Nolan, Phil, and Colin L-R) |
As soon as I'm done taking the picture I look left to see an old Malagasy fellow walking towards us with what I can only describe is a kinfe stick. Think Machete but with a handle made out of a broom stick that is about four feet long. before I can hop on my bike and get the hell out of the vicinity of the stabby pointy thing the old fellow (who looks about 70) is standing on the concrete grinning and talking away in Malagasy.
"Salama!", I declare, using up my entire vocabulary in one quick sentence. I throw on my stupid vazah smile and he seems thoroughly amused. He begins talking more excitedly and gestures towards the water. In the broken Frenglish and Malagasy we put together I understand he's trying to be a nice guy and has noticed that we are all sweating profusely and look parched. He deftly slices a large leaf off of a nearby baby palm and folds it into a cup, leans over and scoops roughly a cup of poop ditch water out of the vile looking stream.
Smile you idiot, smile and pretend like you're not thirsty. How are you going to communicate that you don't want to drink the disgusting water without offending this thoughtful old fellow kitted out in clothes that look as weathered as the fellow. I will never forget the sage advice of my good old parents, "Just smile and nod." In this case I substituted nodding with vigorously shaking my head and while putting on my biggest, dumbest grin, pointed to Phil (the only guy who speaks French) and said, "He'd love some."... Redirection! Yes!
Phil smiled his way out of the water and Colin quickly defused the situation by handing the wonderful little old guy a cigarette. This caused a great deal more unintelligible happy rambling from the man but in the end saved us all from certain dysentry.
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| Motorcycles, bridge, poopditch. In that order. At least it's beautiful country! |
Back up the trail the way we'd come we made good time, heading for the road and greener, easier to ride pastures. Across the sketchy bridges, through the sand, and back out onto the road we made the call to go for a quick ride down RN2 towards Tana to get some air through our sweaty selves before heading back to camp. An uneventful but scenic ride down the RN2 ensued and with the sun continuing to peek, it was time to head back to camp.
Exhausted but happy we all rolled back into camp around 1230PM. Some quick work on fixing Nolan's bike ensued and the remaining riders and I hit the beach for some pizza and much needed relaxing.
All in all a pretty great way to spend a Sunday.
If you made it this far you deserve a medal. I'm tired, hopped up on cold meds, and rambled for an hour and a half to put the above together. Sorry. :)
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